Shuttle Goes Well, But It`s Hot

October 01, 1988|By Paul Weingarten, Chicago Tribune.

HOUSTON — Shuttle Discovery encountered only minor technical glitches Friday, the second day of what one NASA official called its ``test flight.`` One glitch was that it was too warm inside the spacecraft.

After the hand-wringing and exultant relief on Thursday that accompanied America`s first shuttle launch since the Challenger explosion 32 months ago, the veteran Discovery crew settled into a familiar routine of scientific experiments and trading jokes with ground controllers.

The astronauts were awakened at 4:37 a.m. Chicago time by a special taped message beamed from Mission Control at Houston`s Johnson Space Center.

``Good Morning Vietnam,`` then dedicated to Discovery a special shuttle song arranged to the theme of TV`s ``Green Acres``:

We can`t believe we`ve made it here

So high above the atmosphere

We just adore the scenery

Yeah, Houston`s great but give me that Zero-G.

Later, during lunch, the astronauts retaliated by serenading Mission Control with a recording of ``I Heard It Through the Grapevine.``

``The orbiter is great, it`s marvelous,`` said flight controller J. Milton Heflin at an afternoon news conference. ``The machine is just super. We are again demonstrating we are ready to continue flight operations.``

The crew`s duties included photographing what NASA termed ``some of the natural phenomena of the planet Earth,`` including Pacific thunderstorms, a volcanic lava flow in Ethiopia and coastal erosion from Hurricane Gilbert on Mexico`s Yucatan Peninsula.

If it appeared that perhaps the five astronauts didn`t have enough work to keep them busy, ``That`s a fair observation,`` said Heflin, describing their duties as ``housekeeping and Earth observation.``

The lighter work schedule allowed the crew to inspect about 200 system modifications made in the spacecraft since the Challenger tragedy. ``We`re not breaking any new ground,`` pilot Richard Covey had said before the launch.

The temperature in the cabin was still too hot-84 degrees at midday-because of a persistent cooling malfunction, the mission`s most annoying technical hitch so far. To help melt ice that had accumulated in vents during Thursday`s liftoff, controllers told the astronauts to raise the temperature in their primary cooling system.

This raised the cabin temperature to the mid-80s, forcing the astronauts to turn up their fans and drink extra water. By 4 a.m. Friday, the cabin was back down to 79 degrees. The astronauts stripped to shorts and T-shirts and made the best of it. Even if the problem is not solved by Monday, Heflin said, the cabin temperature on re-entry would rise only to the upper 80s.

The astronauts also had trouble Friday with a large radio antenna dish that they had placed outside the payload bay to transmit data to Earth. The antenna wasn`t working, so controllers gave the crew instructions to pull it back inside the bay and bolt it down, so it would be secure for landing Monday.

The crew was able to withdraw the antenna by remote control. Otherwise, it might have been necessary to don spacesuits and retrieve it manually.

Little more than six hours into the mission Thursday, crew members John Lounge and David Hilmers, working at a panel inside the cabin, released a $100 million communications satellite. The 5,000-pound satellite, sprung from a tilt-table that rose out of the cargo bay, glided effortlessly into an orbit all its own.

An hour later, after commander Frederick Hauck and pilot Covey maneuvered Discovery to a safe distance, a timer ignited a rocket on the giant satellite and propelled it toward a stationary orbit 22,300 miles high. Another rocket fired it into its final orbit later as the astronauts slept.

Supervising the experiments aboard Discovery is astronomer-turned-astronaut George Nelson, who said he planned to spend much of his leisure time stargazing. Each astronaut brought music cassettes for relaxation, with fare ranging from Willie Nelson to Mozart.

Among the scientific experiments the astronauts performed Friday was a study of red blood cells donated by victims of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and cancer to determine if weightlessness could play a role in developing new diagnostic procedures.

An important part of the mission will occur Sunday morning when Discovery`s crew will remember the five men and two women of Challenger in a special way. Hauck said the nature of the memorial will be disclosed then.

Discovery is to land Monday at 11:32 a.m. Chicago time on Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base in California.